When senior guard Nate Butler Lind stood at the foul line with just under 10 seconds left in TCU’s game Thursday against Kansas, he could not help but allow a smile to escape. This was big. He knew that much. But how big?

Certainly TCU’s 62-55 home victory over the Jayhawks was the largest upset of the 2012-13 season. The Horned Frogs entered the game without a Big 12 Conference victory in eight tries, and they weren’t even coming close. Only one of those defeats was by a single-digit margin. KU entered with a No. 5 ranking and a 19-2 overall record.

Might calling it the year’s biggest upset be too limiting, though?

According to Jerry Palm of CBSSports.com, there has not been a wider differential in RPI rankings between an upset winner and its victim than TCU (No. 236) and KU (No. 7) in the two decades he has been tracking the ratings. Kansas, which fell Saturday at home to Oklahoma State, hadn’t had endured back-to-back losses since 2006.

“Bad play, bad coaching, bad everything,” coach Bill Self said on the Jayhawk IMG Radio Network, well after the game ended. “This is not a bad loss. It’s an unbelievably bad loss.

“The obvious thing is we’re not very good right now. All teams go through funks, but this is probably the worst funk I’ve seen a Kansas team in. We’re not a confident bunch. It’s a ridiculous thing on a confidence level.”

KU never led in the game. The Jayhawks did not score until freshman forward Jamari Traylor hit a jumpshot with 12:42 on the clock. They finished 3-of-23 from 3-point range and finished 18-of-61 from the field. They were so poor they lost despite outrebounding TCU by five and the Horned Frogs’ 57.9 percent foul shooting.

After trailing 22-13 at halftime, there seemed plenty of opportunity for KU to rally and avoid a second consecutive defeat. Instead the Jayhawks scored only six points in the first 6:54 of the second half and fell back to a 33-19 deficit. They rallied to trail by four points with 7:20 left, but another drought developed and KU scored just two points in the next 4 minutes.

TCU got 20 points from senior wing Garlon Green, more points than he scored in the previous three games combined.

A capacity crowd of 7,412 at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum – let’s admit it, we had to look up the name of the building because TCU has been so nondescript in basketball for so long – stormed the floor at the final buzzer and celebrated as the Jayhawks walked somberly off the floor.

Self had complained following the Oklahoma State loss that KU didn’t have a point guard. Senior Elijah Johnson converted to the position prior this season after three years of playing mostly shooting guard, but over the past half-dozen games he has averaged 7.3 points, 3.0 assists and 3.7 turnovers. Self cited the dreadful shooting of the guards – Johnson, Ben McLemore and Naadir Tharpe were a combined 11-of-43 from the field – as a major factor in the defeat.

KU still stands tied for first in the Big 12 Conference with a 7-2 record, but the Jayhawks have two tough games in three days: Saturday at Oklahoma (14-7, 5-4) and Monday at home against co-leader Kansas State (18-4, 7-2).

“We were kind of the bullies of the league, and we let people think they could whip us. And when we did, now everybody thinks they can whip us,” Self said. “If we were getting everybody’s best shot two weeks ago, imagine how it will be now that everybody thinks they’re going to win.

“These guys have got to figure out a way to get tougher, and I’ve got to help them get tougher. I do believe we will get it turned, but it needs to be sooner rather than later.”